It's not that it's important to me, however, when I was about to post, considering it's a critique forum, I thought I may get challenged/critiqued on the seemingly "over the top" colours and I figured full disclosure would mitigate that a bit and answer the point before it was made.

You were worried about the veracity of the colors? I've lived at the lake; witnessed many sunsets that look just like this over the water. The sky is terrific! The blending moment of all the wonderful light available at sunset. The entire image works for me.

An old adagium states: design for black & white first, add colors later. What does this image provide if it didn't have just "pretty" colors?

To my eye it has great lines - the silhouettes of the trees and the peninsula and the lines from the current flow in the water would all come through in B&W. The colours in the sky certainly add an interesting layer but I think it stands on its own in B&W. Besides, while the adage has merit in general, some colour images are good simply because they're colourful! YMMV!!

Mike.

Logged

If your mind is attuned to beauty, you find beauty in everything.~ Jean Cooke ~

I don't think that is a fair question. It's up to the photographer to make those decisions for themselves, and they don't owe anyone an explanation for their choices about photos and realism. Different strokes for different folks....ya know.

This is a wonderfully composed and executed image and equally excellent digital transfer. Nice work!!

The reason I thought it an unfair question is that he made clear by his posting that he was interested in getting an accurate rendition of the original experience. There are many types of photographers here including people who do wonderfully interpretive stuff with B&W conversions, cropping, soft focus, vignetting, HDR and lots more. When someone says they are or are not trying to make an image look interpretive, we can like it or not like it; we can critique the image for being too much or too little like reality, BUT questioning someone on WHY they choose to make their art look a certain way (documentary, in this case) is the unfair part. It's a little bit like questioning why someone's favorite color is blue.